


minutes to midnight

by harajukucrepes



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (the body horror is only to a certain level), Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Body Worship, Death, Gang Violence, Gun Violence, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, There's quite a lot of porn?, as usual the language can get pretty vulgar, both yuta and jaehyun aren't very good people, bottom!Yuta, people die in here, this is a very dark fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:02:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harajukucrepes/pseuds/harajukucrepes
Summary: Jung Jaehyun doesn’t require an assassin to be killed.*or, Yuta is an assassin tasked to kill Jaehyun
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 18
Kudos: 104





	minutes to midnight

**Author's Note:**

> \- i'm finally not writing about yuta in a rockband  
> \- but i'm now writing him kill people  
> \- sorry yuta you're my baby i love you
> 
> \- as mentioned by the tags, this fic is very dark even by my standards, so if you're uncomfortable kindly click away  
> \- it's inspired by the Punch Player 2 teaser which in case you haven't seen please take a look [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjfMq-cX46Q)

*

minutes to midnight

*

It will all be over in an instant, you just need to pull the trigger.

Go on, do it.

Bang—a shot reverberates, the silence echoes.

*

Jaehyun comes to him minutes to midnight when the air is still and calm, a pair of glasses on top of his tired eyes and a half-buttoned shirt barely covering a body desperate for a brutal release. They exchange words spoken in touches and body language: a forceful glance that turns into a deep kiss that turns into a game of breath-stealing that turns into a race to undress each other that eventually becomes a fight to draw out the battle for as long as they could, like two destined rivals and their endless struggles.

Except Yuta isn’t really a _rival_ , not in the strictest term, and he’s here because Jaehyun wants— _needs_ —him to be a reminder that not all his encounters need to be some sort of a performance, not all his conversations need to be verbal, and not all his relationships need to be layered with courtesy.

He gasps when Jaehyun groans into his ear when he reaches his climax, the violent vibration of his voice almost drowning out all the pain.

*

Yuta has never killed a man like Jaehyun before.

His first assignments were the street hooligans and impressionable newbies, because you start with the weak and defenseless and they are always the ones who never watch their backs. Then he went on to the middlemen and the rising stars, the ones of great mobility but scarce importance. Afterwards, he moved to the ranked members and the ones closest to the orbit, because a crippled nervous system is the root of a dysfunctional organisation.

When they finally present him with the center of the universe, his fingers can’t stop simulating the pull of a trigger.

*

The message is clear:

24 hours from now. Not a second after.

*

The clock strikes one.

 _Shit_. They used to do it for at least two hours.

*

For a republic that takes pride on its religious secularism, the society chose to rely on a godless council and its secret legion of assassins to rein in the massively powerful and incorrigibly corrupt network of constantly warring criminal cartel clusters they called the Conglomerates, and the motions were all set in stone once a unanimous decision was reached:

That Jung Jaehyun is not a man to be kept alive under any circumstance.

The council insisted that it wasn’t paranoia that fueled the consensus because others of greater notoriety have been allowed to live, but Jung Jaehyun as the heir apparent to the most powerful Conglomerate in the republic happens to be unlucky enough to have a terrifying combination of both the physical merits of a modern-day prince and the intellects of a champion chessmaster. They decided that the matter shall be treated with prudent urgency to not alarm the chain of command within the web of the Conglomerate network, because Jung Jaehyun is but one of the many trump cards they have in their hands and complacency, intended or not, could really be the republic’s undoing.

That’s why, they say to Yuta when they inject an electronic pulse detector inside his head to prepare him for the undercover mission, you’re the best one for this job. It’s the newest secret invention of the council’s—and a research breakthrough that came at the expense of, Yuta has no doubts about this, countless other agents who had surrendered their lives to the so-called noble causes championed by the council—that has been greenlit for usage but only for the highest-staked espionage missions.

The pulse detector will act as a two-way communication device to relay thoughts, words, and messages and is such an organically blended item that Yuta passes through the intensive background check by the Jung Conglomerate in no time at all and rapidly rises through the ranks by the sheer range of his skills alone.

By the time Yuta catches the target’s eyes however, the council notices they have made a miscalculation because:

Jung Jaehyun, apparently, doesn’t require an assassin to be killed.

*

Jaehyun is a master at putting a selectively clueless front—a skill that comes with possessing the greatest foresight known to mankind.

Don’t go, he says, clinging to Yuta right before the clock strikes two and burying his face at the place near his hips where a bullet had once passed by.

*

Their first kiss starts with a confession from Jaehyun:

I’ve never been with someone like you before.

It sounds like a backhanded compliment designed to instigate him, but Yuta lets him talk about all the kinds of people he had slept with anyway: the childhood friend who was reluctantly made into his girlfriend who was now his fiance; a few flings here and there, always men; his best friend in high school whom he couldn’t love in official capacity; the senior in university whom he wouldn’t acknowledge; a few affairs here and there, also always men.

Then Jaehyun kisses him again and he kisses him so deep that Yuta feels like he could really take advantage of the way Jaehyun willingly lets down his guards and lock him in right now with his limbs, measure the width of his head and seek the spot at the back of his neck that would break him perfectly—but he doesn’t.

Instead, he lets Jaehyun admire the scars and the bruises, explore the way his muscles work, slowly commit the shape of his body to his memories and also, appreciate the features of his face that he used to find inconvenient before starting to lay the groundwork to his demise by gradually testing him. He points to a gunshot wound below his waist and tells Jaehyun that he almost lost a kidney; he cups his face gently with his hands and lays out to him exactly how much blood is in them; he tugs at his hips with legs and teases him about how he used to trap those unfortunate men between them before warning him that a man consumed by lust is always a man at his weakest.

His last and final test is when he laces the tip of his tongue with poison before kissing him back:

That’s because you’ve never fucked someone who wants you dead.

*

For the first few weeks after Yuta was introduced as the new bodyguard, Jaehyun regards him in ways that make his skin crawl. He’s no stranger to being under permanent surveillance and yet, something about the incisiveness of Jaehyun’s watchful eyes chills him from within.

In his report back to the council headquarters, he describes Jung Jaehyun as a hyper aware man who never sleeps, using his calm breathings to camouflage his visceral vigilance and moving like he has eyes at the back of his head. Having installed a system of altruistic distrust within his closest advisors and guards, it meant that his smiles, his words, his gestures, his body language, and his distance to people are all calculated and curated to the degree that even Yuta finds to be harrowingly intimidating.

Specifically, Yuta writes, Jung Jaehyun has a history of weeding out people who had tried gaining his favour by attempting to die for him.

Therefore, he concludes, the only way to get near him is to threaten his life.

*

It’s just 2am, Jaehyun whispers, pulling Yuta in as he steadily climbs above him, and I’m not done wanting you.

It’s a facade and Yuta knows about it, because whenever Jaehyun says things like that, he would have his lips on the burn scar across his chest and his palm on the wound on his hips. Yuta lets Jaehyun’s eyes linger on them while he stays still, finding a blind spot in his defenses and analysing the best timing to strike. He lets Jaehyun cradle his head, trail his tongue along his jawline and breathe into the curve of his neck; all while watching him nonchalantly and sensing his heartbeat intensify as he finds another scar, another wound, another bruise.

He has known for a while now that Jaehyun loves them because they tell him things about him that he wouldn’t say, but he wonders if he knows that some of them are self-inflicted.

*

The second time they kiss, Jaehyun asks him to see him in the mansion’s library to have a game of chess and Yuta shows up to tell him that he doesn’t know how to play.

But Jaehyun invites him to sit opposite him anyway, because please, he says in the presence of his official retainers and subordinates, I don’t often get to have casual conversations with anyone my age. He dispels their very legitimate concerns in his justification of his decision to spend time alone with Yuta with a charmingly dimpled smile, a tap on the shoulder and a simple sentence:

He’s one of my precious shields, he says decisively, announcing a direct endorsement of Yuta’s indoctrination into his closest circle.

Jaehyun extends his courtesy to Yuta by explaining the rules of chess to him, but their first game together ends within minutes anyway because Yuta has underestimated the storm of confusion and uncertainty brewing inside his head and Jaehyun only grins as he takes note of the way he has been uncharacteristically rattled.

He starts the second game with a challenge:

I’ve always been guarded with the promise of life, Jaehyun declares as he corners Yuta’s queen within 5 moves, but I think I need to know what death feels like.

It’s yet another game that they finish within minutes and then they take the third game to the nearby shelf and begin ripping each other’s clothes apart and Jaehyun takes it upon himself to search for the scar of the wound that came the closest to claiming Yuta’s life—a nicely angled, neat stab cut on his left chest inches above his heart right next to his nipple—and starts worshipping it.

It gets Yuta so hard that he can’t help but to agree to play this game with him over and over, always with Jaehyun ending it with a long, tight embrace and a wistful sigh, asking rhetorically if this will be how he dies.

*

The subsequent orders came in droves after the council, predictably, got word of the fact that Yuta has been intimate with Jaehyun.

They first had him eliminate some of his most loyal operatives and he got rid of them in a matter of days. They then asked him to separate him away from his family and he drove them away from the mansion in a matter of weeks. Afterwards they told him to isolate his fiance from him and all he had to do was to orchestrate an occasion for her to see them with hands and mouths all over each other and then she asked to have some time apart.

Finally, they told him that the council had overwhelmingly agreed that eliminating Jung Jaehyun is now a matter of national urgency and it would need to happen before he could cause any further collapse to the foundation of the republic’s governing body.

At 3am, when the council detects yet another milestone in the change in his resolve, they send him a signal strong enough to make him take Jaehyun’s hand to cover his mouth to contain a muffled growl right when Jaehyun makes him come to remind that this man fucking him right now is most dangerous man in the entire history of the republic—

— _ever_.

*

Just hang in there, we have a plan.

*

At 4am, Yuta lies awake thinking about the first time he killed someone in Jaehyun’s name.

Charlotte Kim was supposed to be a college student with a part-time job at the cafe where Jaehyun usually got his coffee from. She was extremely beautiful in the non-conventional way, with a pair of fascinatingly mismatched eyes and an asymmetrical face and she was, according to her at that time, in love with Jaehyun.

She would frequently ask Jaehyun if she would try her new bagel recipe and new single-origin coffee brew because she thought that it would be a form of flattery if the great Mr Jung would find it in himself to take a bite or two and tell her how it tasted like. Yuta would always deny her—after all, on paper or not, he needed to be seen actually guarding Jaehyun’s life—but Jaehyun worked out that his measured benevolence had to be granted to even random pretty cafe baristas, so he allowed Yuta to take a few bites before taking them himself and Charlotte flashed her most brightest smile at the sight of Jaehyun’s approval.

It was the same smile that was on her face when Yuta put a bullet into her guts at point blank and she admitted that she was sent by a rival Conglomerate to target _Yuta_ , because otherwise she wouldn’t have concocted such elaborate plans to design recipes over and over again just to make sure that he had to eat them. She had that smile on her face because she managed to cut a vein on Yuta’s arm and maybe, just maybe, even if she didn’t manage to kill him, scarring him deep enough would mean that she left a mark on him because a job half-done was better than a job not done. She had that smile on her face because even if it was for a mission, she really was in love with Jaehyun and in another life, the smile he had on his face when he said he liked his bagels might mean something else, the words they exchanged might lead to something else and—

Maybe, she mumbled, _maybe_.

—she might have a chance to be with him.

It was raining that day when Jaehyun, with an umbrella above him, found Yuta standing at the back of the alley, in front of the girl with a wretched life who only wanted to simply be with a boy she idealised, the blood dripping from his arm to the ground mixed with the salty rain. He didn’t bother asking if the girl was gone by then, because his priorities were on Yuta’s injured arm, so he threw the umbrella away to seize Yuta’s hand and started filling his lips with Yuta’s blood before kissing him so hard that he made Yuta’s mouth wet with the metallic taste of his own injury, cruelly stomping on Charlotte’s dream of normalcy right before her consciousness faded away.

That night, Jaehyun asked Yuta if he was jealous and Yuta responded with a bite on his arm, at the very same place he had drank his blood from.

*

Yuta knows very well that the electronic pulse detector inside his head serves to both control and eavesdrop him—it’s one of those implicit parts in the deal he signed when they took him in as an operative at the age of 10.

The council follows the conventional playbook of training their assassins and Yuta isn’t any different: trained from the time he was taken in until he was proven to be capable of killing efficiently then taking in missions after missions to hammer in the right ideology until he becomes the only candidate for this ultimate mission.

It’s never a problem for Yuta until he encounters the inconvenience upon realising that he really, really, really wants to scream whenever Jaehyun makes him come.

It’s like being told that being fucked that good is a sin—being touched like that, being held like that, feeling so flustered that his heart would race, feeling so pampered that his body could float in the air—and Yuta sometimes feels that everything has been designed to work against him. He doesn’t get to choose who to kill, he doesn’t get to choose when to not kill, he doesn't get to choose how to kill—fate is so inherently unfair, he says to Jaehyun.

The night is cold because winter is approaching, so Jaehyun huffs into his palms before massaging his back and tells him that yes, he agrees.

Fate is cruel, he says, and yet, fate is the thing that has led you to me.

Jaehyun lets Yuta warm his hands around his neck and he leans in so that their bodies are one, then he whispers softly.

You, he says, who have my life in your hands.

If this is a trap, Yuta thinks, he doesn’t feel like he’s able to find his way out.

So use it wisely, Jaehyun pleads as he nestles in the crook of Yuta’s neck.

The council could probably hear his tears despite his best effort to suppress and for the first time ever, Yuta resents the fact that his time with Jaehyun has a permanent audience.

*

I’m sorry, Jaehyun says to his fiance when she returns after a brief parting. Romance is not afforded to people like me.

He kisses her so lightly that Yuta sees her eyebrows flutter and it sickens him that Jaehyun would use her genuine affections to manipulate her like that, to falsely reassure her of his devotion and that he still wants to honour the day when he had once pledged to guarantee her a lifetime of safety.

It sickened him so much that he fucks Jaehyun that night with the kind of jealousy that is enough to crush him to pulps and he’s so smitten by anger and resentment that he forgets that Jaehyun is the larger and stronger between them as he pins him to the bed, laughing like he has just been presented with a gift.

I didn’t lie, he argues. I really am not the kind of man who can afford the price of romance.

He calms Yuta down with a kiss as light as the one he gave to his fiance and Yuta wants to throw up.

Because if I could, Jaehyun continues, his hands sweeping Yuta’s hair away from his sweat-filled forehead before kissing it.

I wouldn’t be sleeping with a weapon.

*

Yuta wakes up at 6am, just as the sun rises in time for him to glance at Jaehyun’s peaceful sleeping face, illuminated by the morning rays and freshened by the scents of dewdrops from the garden.

It reminds of his very first mission report back to the headquarters, where he had explained the way Jaehyun never really sleeps and he’s wondering now if he should send another report to correct himself because Jaehyun does sleep, and he sleeps very well.

Maybe he should, he thinks, if he could remove the part where he would have to say that Jaehyun only ever sleeps properly in Yuta’s presence.

*

Rise and shine! the council’s morning message says.

It’s the D-day.

*

He watches Jaehyun stir lightly in his sleep at 7am, recalling the second time he killed someone for Jaehyun’s sake and shot himself straight up to the top of the council watchlist.

Alan Johnson was hired by the Jung Conglomerate because of his expertise in breaking through the logistics trade with South America, and right away Yuta knew that he was sent by the council.

Yuta had remembered him from his second mission when Alan Johnson was Lil Mathew back then, masquerading as a homeless crack tasked to bait the dealers into the streets in broad daylight so that it would be easy for gun-wielding agents like Yuta to target and snipe effectively. He had been thankful for Lil Matthew at that time because of how the suaveness of his made-up persona had saved Yuta from being identified by the enemy by literally distracting them.

Then Lil Matthew resurfaced in front of him, having slicked up his hair, cleaned up his whole appearance, lost 10 kgs and gave himself a name like Alan Johnson that couldn’t sound more like a fake name even if it tried, Yuta was sure that he was definitely watching him from the front instead of watching him from the back and he was no longer thankful.

Jaehyun sensed Yuta’s apprehension, but because he couldn’t be openly suspicious about Alan Johnson, he specifically chose Yuta to be with him everytime he had discussions with him for, Yuta deduced, two purposes: first was to observe Yuta and Alan Johnson’s interactions and second, was to give Yuta a moment to deliberate his loyalties—if he had any.

It was the way Jaehyun had handled Alan Johnson that reminded Yuta that in this world, he was but a rook in a game of chess played by the council and conglomerate lords and somewhat, just for once, he would like to know it would feel to be a rook taking down the almighty queen.

So when the time came for him to open fire, he shot right in the middle of Alan Johnson’s head, not even giving him a second to ponder what went wrong.

*

Tonight, the message briefs, at 11pm, watch out for the red Mustang. A fellow agent will make sure that a collision happens and then it will be up to you.

*

Yuta knows nothing about Esther other than these facts: she’s a postgraduate scholar in Economics, a socialite notorious for her obsession with luxurious earrings, occasionally a high fashion model and she’s to marry Jaehyun in less than a year.

Once she decides that the drama surrounding her alleged breakup with Jaehyun has had enough publicity, she makes a spectacle of moving back into the mansion and requests Yuta’s company for a few days. Jaehyun’s puzzled, because the mansion is the safest place she could be, he says, and you wouldn’t need a bodyguard.

Esther simply smiles as she gives her answer.

I just want to get to know him better.

Jaehyun gives her a playful scoff as a response and Yuta feels like he could put a knife in his chest right there and then.

*

At 10am, Yuta moves to wake Jaehyun up but hesitates once he sees him still soundly asleep with an arm below his head.

Yuta sits next to him and stares mindlessly at his face as he takes advantage of this stolen serenity until he sees his eyeballs shift below the lids and he knows that it’s safe to shake him up.

*

Feed him good, the council reminds. Treat him like he’s on a death row.

*

When Jaehyun opens his eyelids and smiles as he wishes him a simple “good morning”, Yuta is reminded that the thing with Alan Johnson was what got Jaehyun so confident in being vulnerable in Yuta’s presence.

He was standing still at that time, frozen in his place when Jaehyun arrived at the woods where he had shot Alan Johnson. Or Lil Matthew. Or whatever the fuck his original name was. Yuta had wished that it would rain like it did when Charlotte Kim slashed his arm, because it was in the middle of the day and he was expecting the council to activate the electricity of the chip in his head to blow him up for the treasonous action.

Yet he was still standing and breathing despite the two ways he could be meeting his end abruptly.

He took a look at Jaehyun to see if there would a knowing smirk on his face for having predicted that this day would eventually come to prove that he could bend even the hardest of weapons and Yuta was ready to accept that his head would be gone by the time an answer would be given to him.

But there was a cloud of rage and worry washing over Jaehyun’s face and Yuta suddenly found himself paralysed with an emotion unknown to him as he was dragged back to the mansion and to Jaehyun’s personal chambers and he was made to stay until night fell and once Jaehyun completed all his urgent tasks with his usual calibrated efficiency, he finally, _finally_ let down all of his guards and told Yuta something that made Yuta wish the council would really just blow his head open to save him from this agony:

You were supposed to kill me—

Jaehyun, making it clear that his lust for him has succumbed to a new monster—the very same monster that had been paralysing Yuta—held him close and had his two hands hovering above both the back of his neck and his spine.

—so, don’t even bother thinking about dying for me.

*

Esther scans Yuta’s face in a way that makes him squirm—it’s like he’s being perceived, being evaluated, being _judged_.

She lets out a resoundingly defeated sigh after finishing her scrutiny.

You’re so pretty, she says, scooting closer and trailing her thumb on his lips. I envy you so much, she gushes. You and your large, lovely eyes. You and your high cheekbones. You and your sharp nose. You and your heart-shaped lips. You and your long graceful neck. You and the way your long luscious hair makes me want to know how beautiful your mother must have been. You and your small, soft hands that I bet would be a heaven to hold. You and your sweet, gentle voice that must be a blessing to hear.

I can see why he’s so taken by you.

*

At 12pm, Esther knocks on Jaehyun’s door to remind him that the guests are arriving.

Jaehyun seems to be in a good mood today, because he hums as he puts on his neck tie while his longtime retainer, John, walks him through everything that has been planned for the day, including a lunch with fellow alumni from UCLA where he is to introduce Esther to his former college mates and in the evening, the grand opening of a casino owned by a former subordinate who left to pursue his own business while keeping close ties to the conglomerate.

Yuta watches him intently, trying hard to not focus on the fact that he only has 12 more hours with him.

*

Don’t get distracted. Remember the red Mustang.

*

At 1pm as he watches Jaehyun have his security loosened to welcome his distinguished guests, Yuta thinks of that time when things took an abrupt change after he took out Alan Johnson, because it was when the Conglomerate started ramping up the security and Jaehyun started excluding him from certain discussions and it would be two weeks after that before a fellow agent whom he only knew as Bill contacted him when he went to take a false cigarette break at the side of the streets.

The council has been infiltrated, Bill said. Two members of the upper chambers are in the hospital now.

Yuta didn’t quite believe it, because the upper chambers were the members with the highest level of security protection and as an agent, he had always been told that the council higher-ups were nigh impenetrable.

I was told to tell you that if you had never believed just how dangerous that man is, Bill continued, you better believe it now.

Yuta wanted to say that he knew about that at the back of his mind, but it would be a form of lie.

Hey, buddy, Bill then dropped the persona of an anxiety-ridden impoverished smoker. Just be careful, ok.

Why.

You know why, Bill replied briefly as he stepped on his cigarette butt. I don’t have to tell you this but you have only two more chances.

His words left Yuta reeling as he mentally computed all his interactions with both the council and the Jung Conglomerate, wondering which would be the likelier party to claim his head.

*

At 1.30pm, Yuta spots it from the balcony, a “guest chef” putting a pill into a bottle of wine meant for Jaehyun.

*

Yuta knows that Jaehyun must have successfully targeted yet another council member, because he’s dragging out the foreplay like he wants to reap his reward.

It’s so slow that he wanted to yank Jaehyun’s hair to tell him to just put it inside him and be done with it already, not planting flirtatious kisses on the inside of his thigh while his hand is stroking him playfully, not massaging his buttocks gently and tongue licking along the lines of his hip bone, not tickling his nipple with his fingertips and breathing hot air into the curves of his collarbone, and even after he puts it inside him, he thrusts it in so leisurely and deliberately like he wants the drawn-out anticipation to kill Yuta and it’s the most painful thing Yuta had to experience, because he would rather have his guts gouged out than have this.

This—the fastest he has ever felt his heart beat, the dizziest ground he has ever lied on, and then—grabbing Jaehyun so that he’s biting his shoulder—when he spills, the biggest form of pleasure he has ever known.

He’s aching so much all over—his head, his chest, and back—that he almost doesn’t want to go for another round. He pushes him and kicks him and glares at him and he almost wants to grab his gun while Jaehyun laughs it off before pulling him in for an embrace, his both hands firmly guarding the spot on his back behind his heart.

I’m sorry, he says, nuzzling against him. But I really like it that way.

What way, Yuta hisses as Jaehyun amuses himself with Yuta’s almost petulant-sounding tantrum.

Whichever way that lets me have you for a longer time, Jaehyun admits, his voice sending tingles underneath Yuta’s skin.

Why.

Jaehyun chuckles. Why? Because you’re very sexy, plain and simple.

No. Yuta breaks them apart so that they’re looking at each other eye to eye and asks again. _Why._

Jaehyun locks his gaze for a few moments before relaxing his face into a faint, barely-there smile and taking Yuta back into his arms like he’s returning Yuta to where he thinks he belongs, his hands again firmly pressed on his back.

Because I never got to choose how I live, so I want to choose how I die.

Maybe it’s a good thing that Jaehyun isn’t looking at him right now, because Yuta’s eyes are wet and his face is probably flushing.

And I’ll never forgive anyone who wants to take that choice away from me.

*

At 2.30pm, when the lunch is served, Yuta sees the same chef who was putting the pill into the wine now serving Jaehyun his plate of medium rare steak and introducing herself as a Michelin star chef based in Geneva before a female friend of Jaehyun’s rise up to announce that the chef happens to be her partner, and that it would be a great honour if Jaehyun would take up her offer to assist in the preparation for his wedding banquet.

Jaehyun lets his guests erupt in jubilant cheers before taking Esther’s hand into his to thank his longtime friend and politely declines the offer.

We would like to have it small, he explains. Small and intimate and—

Clash.

The crowd immediately turns to look at Yuta, who has been clutching his temples to hide his distressfully painful headache and apologises for causing a disturbance before regaining his composure. The so-called chef fleshed a wink at him, confirming her role in first, debilitating him just enough to render him powerless as she poured a glass of scarlet red wine and second, setting a trap to see in motion where his loyalty lies because otherwise there’s no reason whatsoever to attempt poisoning Jaehyun when there’s already a plan later at night and Yuta’s spinning head can think of nothing but the way this is all a sabotage—

_Sir, please, if your head is hurting, kindly get some rest._

All a fucking sabotage because he started a war when he pulled the trigger at Alan Johnson—

_What are you doing, sir, put down that gun._

Fuck you, Yuta thinks as his bullets break the glass and the bottle behind it and then—

_Sir, calm down._

Everything becomes black.

*

I’ve seen all of them, Esther says. All his lovers—past and present, men and women. You’re the most beautiful of them all.

Yuta’s used to this kind of confrontations, because the council loves putting him in assignments near men who would be susceptible to his looks to cause frictions even among the most casual of marriages. It has never mattered to him because his job has always been to make the frictions temporary anyway as he slithered within his target’s shooting range and to render the frictions unresolved.

But something tells him that Esther is a little different than all the other conglomerate spouses whose marriages are only valid on paper because Yuta could see that some part of her yearns for the rights to be selfish about Jaehyun.

And on that, Yuta thinks, he could empathise.

*

Yuta has had his mind made up—on the day when he would have to put a bullet in Jaehyun’s head, he would finally tell him about how he had felt on that night he decided to stop perceiving Jaehyun’s preference for slow sex as something dreadful.

He would tell him that he has always felt a little flattered that he has treated his scars fondly and that he has been contemplating on asking if he would want to know all the little stories that come with them. He would tell him that he has always felt his chest hurting a little when he takes his hand and puts it near his cheeks or his lips and he had been wanting to know if Jaehyun would like to have Yuta touching his ears when the colours show up as they kiss. He would tell him that it sometimes pains to have him fondle his hips because he has never really recovered from the gunshot wound; that it sometimes pains him to be fucked lying down on his back because he once almost broke his spine after falling down from a height; that it sometimes pains him to be fucked lying down on his stomach because of his hips; and that it sometimes just plainly pains him to be fucked at all, because he really wants Jaehyun to hear his voice, his real voice, and he would rather not be fucked than to have been fucked and not be able to scream.

He would tell Jaehyun that he has been feeling a little bit of everything—and a lot of the little things feel a little like a lot of love.

*

Yuta wakes up in the state of delirium at 6pm when the sun is coming down and rises up from the sofa in Jaehyun’s private infirmary to see him having his family doctor change the bandage on his forearm in front of him.

Stay still, Dr Park says from across the room, his eyes still focused on Jaehyun even as he senses Yuta’s movements. You’ve been shot on your shoulder.

John the retainer closes the door behind him before walking towards Yuta and updates him that right after someone shot him, Jaehyun got himself accidentally stabbed at the arm in the commotion, causing the lunch to be abruptly adjourned and the guests were all chauffeured back to their hotels. Jaehyun requested to stay in the mansion’s infirmary after delegating the investigations to his other subordinates because he wanted to recover as much as possible before the casino opening so as to not alarm the enemy.

Did you get them, Yuta asks, referring to a possible accomplice of the woman who was posing as a guest’s partner and an elite chef that had shot him.

No, John answers with a stern, unbothered expression. Because I was the one who shot you.

So this is it, Yuta thinks, and what a simple plan it was that the Conglomerate didn’t even have to lift a finger but elaborate enough that it successfully got Yuta at his most complacent: telling him to follow through a plan to make him drop all suspicions, sending him a two-layered trap to shake him from his usual alert state, accelerating the electronic signal so that it triggers an extreme response when he gets even a little bit jealous to hurt him so much that he convulses and then finally, getting the perpetrator so close to Jaehyun that it increases the chances for him to make a misstep and eventually be determined as a potential threat to the Conglomerate heir.

The council is still following their conventional playbook—except this time it’s to execute a rogue agent.

So this is it, he thinks, they are keeping him alive so that he can talk.

About the details of his mission; about all the other forms of subterfuge that he has done; about all the people loyal to Jaehyun that he has removed from his side; about all the possible information trails back to the council that he has intentionally designed.

About all the times he has been poisoning Jaehyun’s mind so that he indirectly does the council’s bidding and this is one that Yuta wouldn’t have nothing to talk about because somehow, somewhere, and it must have been especially obvious to the council who has been listening to all his thoughts—

Did it hurt, Jaehyun asks and Yuta notices that they are now alone in this mammoth room.

—that he has abandoned his mission for quite a while.

*

You’re either a toy or a game to him, Esther says in an obvious taunt, and I know that because I know him and the fact is that he has never fallen in love with _anyone._

Not even with _me._

Esther sounds so bitter and so disillusioned that Yuta considers apologising to her in advance even if he didn’t really mean it to be just for her alone—because for all street thugs he sniped and the middleman he gunned down and the bigwigs he assassinated, they had their own Esthers and their own Johns and Yuta couldn’t quite grasp why it suddenly matters to him that Esther splashes him with some acidic rancour to lash out about the way Jaehyun isn’t sorry at all that they are both trapped in this banal arrangement that means so little to him that even Yuta finds it a little insulting.

It must have troubled him so much that even Jaehyun notices it, because he stops kissing the scars on his body to start giving feather-light pecks on his cheeks and his eyebrows and Yuta feels his own fists balling up tightly because it annoys him that much.

It annoys him that his mind involuntarily jumps into a pool of faceless people that were once recipients of all the kisses that Jaehyun is now giving him; it annoys him that he’s but one of the many he has taken to his chamber; it annoys him that he has strayed so much from wanting to kill him because now he is wanting more than just his life; and finally, it annoys him that Esther was right—because if a lifelong commitment on paper couldn’t bind him, neither would a singularly targeted threat.

Even if Yuta manages to put a bullet into his head—he would only be one successful story of the many who tried.

When Jaehyun senses Yuta’s muddled thoughts, he cradles his head with his entire body and for a few seconds, he feels a little convinced.

Everything she said to you, Jaehyun says, reminding him that he has never lied to his face, they were all true.

Yuta hates himself for what he utters next: Then perhaps you should consider being a proper fiance to her.

Jaehyun starts nibbling Yuta’s ears and plays with his fingertips. You sound a little jealous.

Yuta also hates Jaehyun for this—the way he reads him like he has read the data emitted from his head.

We don’t work that way and you know that, Jaehyun explains softly. Not in this life.

What about next life.

Jaehyun takes a moment to ponder before answering. Probably not. She never had that kind of hold on me, and likewise, I never meant that much to her.

Why not, Yuta asks.

Because in my next life, I want to be a nobody. Someone whose name wouldn’t matter. Someone whose family wouldn’t matter. Someone who doesn’t have his life mapped out for him.

Jaehyun wraps his body around Yuta and before turning the question around.

Would you like to know why?

Not really.

But you’ll want to hear this, he says as he let out a small laugh.

Because I sometimes dream of being a nameless nobody and the nameless me would look for the nameless you, you who wouldn’t have blood in your hands, scars on your body and a gun tied to your waist.

And then at that time, maybe, I won’t need your scars to tell me who you really are.

Yuta suddenly feels conscious about his scars and for the first time, feels so uncomfortable about being naked in Jaehyun’s presence that even Jaehyun knows it, because he kisses him playfully like he knows he has Yuta and that no matter when Yuta will eventually fulfils his purpose, he has now fully reclaimed the autonomy in determining his own fate.

That’s why, Jaehyun sighs, you’re the only one who can kill me.

The device in the head might have been for the council’s convenience, Yuta thinks, but Jaehyun has always been the one who heard him.

*

The faint buzzing noise that he has grown accustomed to hear from behind his head is no longer there because, according to Jaehyun, he has requested that Dr Park makes an exception to have their own secret invention, an absorber that cancels out the pulse detector that would only be allowed on Conglomerate agents, put on Yuta.

Why, he asks.

You were borderline hysterical, Jaehyun explains as he caresses the area surrounding the wound in his shoulder, it was kinda terrifying.

Why, Yuta asks again, because it’s weird that it’s _him_ doing the asking instead of Jaehyun and it’s weird that Jaehyun isn’t interested in what he should be asking: about his mission, about the plan later, about all his treasons.

This prolonged interrogation is going to make him lose his mind, Yuta’s sure of it, especially because Jaehyun drops his voice even though the creases on his forehead are still visible and Yuta can’t move a limb.

Did it hurt, Jaehyun asks again and Yuta finally knows what this is all about.

He sighs before dropping his body back to the sofa, eyes staring at the ceiling.

The gunshot, Yuta replies with a question of his own, or the thing inside my head.

Jaehyun smiles weakly as his fingers move to the spot at the back of Yuta’s head as he wordlessly explain away his prior actions and Yuta thinks of all the times he has been cradling his head to find the tool, all the times he has been guarding the bones caging his heart and all the times he has in many ways urged Yuta to stay focused as he reined in his strongest emotions—all the times Yuta thought he knew what he was doing only to be blindsided by his feelings for him.

What about now, does it hurt anywhere else.

Yuta pulls Jaehyun downwards so that their lips touch—

Everywhere, he answers. Everything hurts.

—and for the first time ever, asks to be kissed.

*

When the time comes, Jaehyun asks as he circles his arms around Yuta’s waist in a backhug and perches his chin on his shoulder, do it quickly.

Yuta doesn’t say anything back, because he doesn’t want to give away the fact that the time is closer than he thinks.

Shove it to me at point blank range, let me look at you one last time, then bang, he jabbers on while holding Yuta’s fingers up in a mock shooting gesture and Yuta is thinking about Jaehyun’s sad existence because it shouldn’t be normal for someone like him to yearn for death.

Jaehyun makes him turn around to see him and Yuta faces a man whose face lights up as he makes this simple request, then, for a moment, allows Jaehyun’s beauty to steal his breath.

The religion in the republic doesn’t encourage beliefs in an afterlife, but for just this one time, Yuta finds himself hoping that Jaehyun will get what he wants.

*

Jaehyun presses a delicate spot at the back of his skull as he pushes his tongue in and Yuta suddenly feels like he has been liberated: there’s no jolt of electricity binding his thoughts, clamping his nerves and shocking his heart.

But for Yuta it doesn’t matter now—it doesn’t matter that his mission is only left with 6 more hours before the deadline, it doesn’t matter that Jaehyun is benching him for this task so there’s no way for him to even execute the council’s plan, it doesn’t matter that a bullet just went through his shoulder and almost grazed his bone, it doesn’t matter that he’s both weak and feverish and badly needing some tranquilizer because his head now has stopped hurting so everywhere else is: his chest hurts because the balloon of emotions he has kept latent inside is going to blow up anytime soon; all the scars all over his body is bleeding afresh because the thin layer of skin covering the unhealable wounds are breaking apart and his crotch aches to be touched, to be released from the shackles that used to bind his body, to be fucked like they are riding to the valley of sin.

The sun is coming down fast, Jaehyun needs to go and Yuta feels like setting the world on fire.

*

The absorber works only to neutralise the shock and not the transmission, so he still hears the messages and as the sun gives way to the moon, Yuta only hears a simple line spoken in a flat, robotic tone.

11pm. Red Mustang.

*

Yuta knocks on Esther’s door to tell her that he’s sorry for scaring her that afternoon and for everything else before.

Then she opens the door and shakes him violently, demanding to know what he’s planning and Yuta only smiles at her before promising something.

I’ll bring your fiance back to you.

*

The time is 9pm and from the Jung Conglomerate intel, Jaehyun is slated to leave the casino at 30 minutes before 11pm.

According to his calculation, he has about 40 minutes more before he should start the car so that he will be able to meet the Jung family Tesla in the middle and the Red Mustang so heavily emphasised in the council messages.

*

Esther grabs him by the collar to give him a tight, suffocating hug.

You too, she insists.

Don’t fucking die on me.

*

As he drives, Yuta thinks of all the times Jaehyun had tried to piece together Yuta’s life story, wondering which one had been due to his family.

Yuta used to grit his teeth to spite him, because in retrospect, he said, all of them were. If the republic had been more peaceful, they wouldn’t have had to learn how to kill. If the Conglomerates could let go of their pride and the crimes and stopped going against the council, they wouldn’t have had to learn how to hurt.

If you weren’t such a danger to the republic, he had said, you would have had flowers in your hand instead of blood.

But Jaehyun only chuckled as he softly flicked a few strands of hair from Yuta’s forehead to kiss his temple and Yuta flipped him over so that he was on top of him to assert that he wasn’t being facetious about the effects of the kind of social conflict that people like him had to endure and the recurring harm done to the most vulnerable of people.

I know, Jaehyun reminded him, and I wish I could say that was why I’m allowing you to kill me.

He threw his head back as he nudged Yuta into straddling him and it was then that Jaehyun let Yuta see him as it most defenseless: clothes away and neck stretching out and veins all popping under his skin and Yuta could have taken the chance to end him right there but then he remembered that Jaehyun had never once resisted him, never once exposed him and never once even implied that he would ever let his family hold a grudge against him.

Yuta used to think that his reluctance to kill Jaehyun was because of his infatuation for him—but in reality it was because Jaehyun had taken it upon himself to change the narrative by making himself Yuta’s hostage instead of his target.

All because Yuta said Jaehyun had never fucked a man who wanted him dead and Jaehyun kissed him and that was how—

 _Fuck,_ Jaehyun groaned as he came and stared fondly upwards at him. You’re so beautiful.

—Yuta stopped being an assassin.

*

Time’s almost up.

*

Jaehyun’s delegation meets the red Mustang at exactly 11pm as all the vehicles screech in the middle of the road on the highway and Yuta abandons his car immediately to find Jaehyun and drag him out of the car. As he has predicted, the purpose of the red Mustang is to enable the council’s hired mercenary forces to surround them so that they could finally create a diversion and Yuta’s job would be to take Jaehyun away from the commotion in a guise to help him escape, then finally kill him as the rest of the council forces battles his subordinates.

Yuta pulls Jaehyun into the woods and they run without once exchanging words and when they reach a point deep enough that they no longer can hear the gunshots from the road, he points his gun at Jaehyun’s direction.

Jaehyun closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before muttering his last wish.

I wish I could have seen you smile, just one time.

Yuta pulls the trigger—

Jaehyun opens his eyes and stares at him wide-eyed.

—and the bullet lands on Bill.

*

Do it. It’s almost minutes to midnight.

*

The echoes of the gunshot caused some of the birds on the tree to fly away and this time, Jaehyun is the one asking all the questions.

Why.

He was about to interrupt me, Yuta answers.

No, Jaehyun yells. You were late.

Yes. And?

You hesitated. Jaehyun accuses. And that was _before_ you saw him.

Yes. And what about it.

You were supposed to do it, Jaehyun says as he approaches closer, you were supposed to kill me, you were supposed to use this chance to redeem yourself to them.

Yuta lowers his gun and his head to the grounds and finally inhales deep enough to make a confession.

I’m sorry. I—

Bang.

*

You have exceeded the time allocated.

Mission failed.

*

Yuta’s fortunate that Jaehyun is near enough to catch him because Bill shot him in the guts where he still hasn't recovered from and without Jaehyun supporting him, that shot combined with the wound on his shoulder and the death of his resolve would have been the end of him.

Breathing feels like inhaling poison but he’ll say it anyway.

You knew from the start I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Jaehyun holds him close and nuzzles him like he’s the most precious, like everything is worth it, like everything has built up to this one and only thing he can give him.

So Yuta musters all his energy and raises his gun to point at a whimpering Bill to finish him off, but then Jaehyun cradles him and tells him something in a low, firm whisper.

Look around you.

And then he sees it—all the council operatives who have been tracking them and following them all now dropping the guns they are carrying because there are knives on their neck.

I didn’t plan for you to come but this is good, this is ok.

From a distance, the Jung Conglomerate helicopter buzzes with increasing fervour and Yuta’s chest is now racing with horror.

*

Sometimes Yuta dreams of the world Jaehyun had once fantasised of, a peaceful place with no wars and they would be two boys who would know each other by their laughs instead of by their glares.

They would run through the flower fields in spring, jump into the sea during summer, sweep the fallen leaves during autumn, make snowmen during winter and then for all seasons they would look at the night sky and talk about all the lives they went through before they became two nameless boys in a nameless world where they exist to live and find each other to love.

And in that world they could be anything: they could be crazy, they could be happy and most of all—

—they could be free.

*

Yuta can’t see Jaehyun’s face right now, but he imagines that he has now made peace with the full extent of his powers and abilities and is now salivating at the impending victory.

It will all be over in an instant, he tells Yuta, vesting in him the decision that would change the world as they know it. You just need to pull the trigger.

The original plan was to have Jaehyun alone as the bait and that the Conglomerate agents would then hide in the woods, waiting for the council operatives to run right in and get trapped with the signal to kill being a gunshot from Jaehyun.

But now that Yuta’s here, he delegates the signal to him as a gift to him for having protected him, spared him his life and taken a bullet meant for him.

Jaehyun hates it when people attempt to die for him and Yuta is now feeling the full degree of how much he is willing to bend the rules for his own whims and it was all because Yuta has defied the order of the republic for his sake.

It honestly terrifies him—but Jaehyun has had him bewitched and he can’t find it in him to say no.

Go on, do it, Jaehyun nudges gently. You’re still bleeding and I need to get you home.

Yuta closes his eyes and shoves away the dream of another life then raises his gun.

Bang—a shot reverberates, the silence echoes at minutes to midnight and the only thing Yuta hears is the sound of Jaehyun stealing his breath in a passionate kiss as the pool of blood deepens around them.

*

In another world, the two boys look at the night sky imagining a life where one of them would be an assassin tasked to kill the other only to end up falling in love, wondering if the sun would ever come.

*

**Author's Note:**

> \- thank you for reading, and apologies for yet another ambiguous ending because i'm a chicken  
> \- as you can imagine, this gets harder to write near the end because yuta has fallen so hard  
> \- please stay safe and remember that black lives matter


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